Mahwah's Joe Noonan, center, trying to recover the ball in Tuesday's victory over Indian Hills.

The astronomical outside expectations and individual accolades that came with them have disappeared, too.

What's left is a scrappy team with several talented players who fight for ground balls, look for open teammates and throw their bodies in front of shots to protect their net.

And the Thunderbirds couldn't be any happier.

"It's a different year, a different team and we're having a lot of fun," senior midfielder Joe Noonan said. "It seems like this year we're clicking a lot better. We're not a one- or two-man team anymore. We're playing as a complete team now."

That wasn't always the case in the past. Since starting its varsity program in 2009, Mahwah has always had at least one star in the forefront, beginning with Mark Glicini (Yale) and Joe Kearney (Bucknell) and continuing last year with Bob Collins (going to Notre Dame in 2014), who led Mahwah to incredible heights including county and league titles.

But this year Mahwah is relying on the whole rather than the individual, and so far it's working out.

After a 9-2 Rizk Division win over Indian Hills on Tuesday – a game in which five players scored and more than half the goals were assisted – Mahwah is 3-1 with its only loss coming against state-power Summit.

It’s being led by a defense that looks like the interior of an offensive line – average height and weight of standouts Nick Codina, Alex Piserchia, Mike Hogan and Dave Bernhart is around 6-3, 230 – and an offense that can be led in scoring by Noonan, Paul Curtiss, Alex Tzaneteas, Shawn Doran or several others.

"It's definitely a group effort," Curtiss said. "It's not just one stud anymore. Everyone has to do their job for us to succeed and that's brought us closer as a team."

Most people outside of the program didn’t know what to expect from Mahwah with only one college-committed player on its roster – Noonan will play at D-III Union and Codina is being recruited by several teams. But the internal expectations never changed.

The Thunderbirds still expect to challenge for league, county and state titles, even though they know most people don't think they can compete for the latter two.

"A lot of people probably said that we lacked the talent we have [had] in the past," first-year head coach Ryan Humphreys said. "But this team is working together and I think that is going to make us stronger than we were."